Why Germans May Stick With Merkel’s Steady Hand

By James Kirchick -
Sep 20, 2013

A great deal about Germany’s
elections this weekend can be discerned from the hand gestures
that define the two leading candidates.

On one side, two hands are gently counterpoised against
each other, thumbs and index fingers pressed together at the
tips. This is the “Merkel rhombus,” the resting position in
which the hands of Chancellor Angela Merkel can usually be
found. Whether standing alongside world leaders at a Group of 20
meeting or talking to ordinary Germans outside a supermarket,
this gesture has become so famous that it appears on posters for
her party, the Christian Democratic Union, without any
accompanying text.

The next image is of a beefy hand delivering an obscene
gesture. The fist belongs to the Social Democratic Party’s Peer Steinbrueck, who is Merkel’s lead challenger. Suddeutsche
Zeitung, Germany’s leading newspaper, had asked Steinbrueck to
respond nonverbally to some of the nicknames journalists have
bestowed upon him over his many years in politics. Steinbrueck,
who already has a reputation as an impulsive gaffe machine,
decided to cement that reputation further -- not to mention
crush all hopes of an electoral victory for the left -- by
holding up his middle finger on the cover of the newspaper’s
magazine supplement.

Middle Ground

Although Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the
Christian Social Union, are polling at around 40 percent, the
chancellor has long enjoyed personal approval ratings of 60
percent. Due to Germany’s complicated electoral system, in which
each citizen casts two votes (the first a “direct mandate” for
a local Bundestag candidate, the second for the party’s
proportional list), Merkel’s overwhelming popularity among the
populace doesn’t automatically translate into an assured
victory.

Most, however, are betting on a win for her party. The
CSU’s 48 percent victory in last weekend’s Bavarian election --
which will give it a majority of seats in the provincial
parliament and allow it to ditch the Free Democratic Party and
govern the province on its own -- has warmed the hearts of
conservatives in Berlin. The main question now is whether the
current governing coalition of the CDU and the business-friendly
Free Democrats will remain or be supplanted by a “grand
coalition” of the CDU and the SDP, an arrangement that existed
from 2005 to 2009.

Either way, Germans want to continue being cradled in the
hands of “Mutti,” or “Mom,” as the chancellor is sometimes
called. Germany has been a relative island of stability,
moderation and prosperity on a continent beset by debt crisis,
youth unemployment and resurgent nationalism. Merkel’s
government has balanced the budget, and Germany enjoys its
lowest level of unemployment since reunification two decades
ago.

Domestically, the chancellor is an ardent seeker of the
middle ground, a trait that is highly valued in Germany’s
“consensus society.” Her critics say this indicates a lack of
vision and opportunism. In some cases, they have a point. Her
government’s decision to abandon nuclear power after the 2011
Fukushima disaster in Japan -- although it was highly popular at
the time -- was a short-sighted overreaction that will make
Germany ever more dependent on Russian oil and gas.

The biggest issue in this election has been the unsettling
lack of big issues. To listen to the candidates debate or to
read the news coverage, one would think that the Germans’
biggest problems are whether there is a burning need for a meat-free day in public canteens (a widely ridiculed idea floated by
the Green Party) or the U.S. National Security Agency’s snooping
programs. The latter topic -- which the press has covered in a
sensationalistic, anti-American manner -- has been portrayed in
such an uncompromising light that Germans could hardly be
faulted for thinking that President Barack Obama himself is
privy to their every phone call and text message.

Confronting Reality

To a large extent, a country that experiences boring
politics should consider itself lucky. But as much as Germans
might wish to be a giant Switzerland, being citizens of the
world’s fourth-largest economy demands something more. The
German desire to ignore pressing world problems reflects an
unwillingness to confront reality.

Given the country’s history, the hesitance to take a more
assertive role in the world is understandable, yet it may be
time to retire the phrase “given the country’s history” and
adapt to the present. In any case, Germans seem to have
misunderstood some important lessons from their past. One would
think, for instance, that a country that purports to live by the
maxim “Never again Auschwitz” would respond more energetically
to news that a dictator has used poison gas on his own people.
But the vast majority of Germans want nothing to do with Syria.
And hiding, rather than leading, seems to suit the German
political class just fine.

(James Kirchick is a Berlin-based fellow with the Foreign
Policy Initiative.)

To contact the writer of this article:
James Kirchick at james.kirchick@gmail.com.